The most important book on impeachment in decades

[DonViejo]

By Jennifer Rubin May 14 at 2:30 PM

Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz’s new book, “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment,” is the first book in several decades for lawyers and laymen to thoroughly examine the topic. The previous gold standard was Charles L. Black Jr.’s “Impeachment: A Handbook” (first published during Watergate and reissued in 1998), which took the lessons of Watergate and broadened the discussion to other situations that might arise. Via email, I asked Tribe and Matz a series of questions about their book and our current circumstances; they replied jointly. The first part of that conversation follows, edited for style. Part 2 will appear on Tuesday.

Why did you think a book on impeachment of this type was necessary now?

Everyone with a pulse and an Internet connection knows that impeachment haunts Trumpland. Starting a year before the election and continuing through the present, discussion of [President] Trump’s disgraced ouster has been unavoidable. Amid all this impeachment talk, we found it distressing that many voters deeply misunderstand what’s involved in ending a presidency. Lots of people, for example, believe impeachment is justified based only on dislike of a president’s policies or personality. In addition, many accounts offer a stunningly incomplete picture of the risks on both sides of this equation. Perhaps most alarming, it’s become commonplace to describe the consequences of impeachment in fantastical terms — suggesting it will either magically solve our worst problems or swiftly destroy the American experiment. If the public is going to spend the coming years debating Trump’s removal, we must nurture a reasoned understanding of impeachment’s role in our constitutional order. That’s what the book seeks to provide.

The “bible,” if there is such a thing on impeachment, until now was Charles Black’s book. Where do you agree and disagree with him?

Black’s book is a masterpiece. We differ from him less in substance than in scope and emphasis. He devoted substantial attention to defining which offenses are impeachable. As we see it, that question is just the tip of an iceberg. We offer a thorough explanation of why the Framers created an impeachment power, what role they imagined for Congress and how they forced us to make tough political judgments. We also offer a guided tour through those judgments, examining Congress’s power not to impeach and the vast discretion it exercises throughout an impeachment process. More broadly, we survey the history of impeachment campaigns in U.S. politics, drawing lessons for the present and emphasizing impeachment’s vital (but limited) role in protecting our democracy. Although Black’s book is authoritative on the topics it covers, we conclude that it offers too narrow a vision of the dynamics that shape impeachment.

What are some common myths about impeachment that you wanted to dispel?

Where to start? We’ll hit just a few high notes here:

That consulting the original public understanding of the Constitution will answer many of the hardest questions about impeachment

That impeachment calls only for a single “yea” or “nay” judgment on the sitting president, rather than an ongoing, multidimensional series of political decisions

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/05/14/the-most-important-book-on-impeachment-in-years/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. That shoud be a good read.

Thanks.